If you manage a CRM database effectively, you’ve likely got a pile of prospects who have indicated they are interested in what you’re selling, but didn’t quite join the cheerleading squad. Your cold leads, and they are a huge opportunity. With the help of eLeads and marketing automation, you can set up a re-engagement campaign to re-awaken these unresponsive contacts and steer them back into your sales funnel.
A re-engagement campaign is a targeted series of emails to inactive subscribers. Instead of missing out on these prospects, automation enables you to engage them with relevant content at volume. Here’s how to create a campaign that works.
Why Re-Engagement Campaigns Are Crucial
It costs you a lot less to keep or re-engage an old lead than it does to acquire new ones. In fact, the cost of gaining a new customer can be 5-25 times more than keeping an existing one.
When a lead goes silent, it doesn’t mean they rejected your brand. It may be that they were just busy or weren’t at a point when they wanted to make a purchase. A timely re-engagement campaign brings your brand to the forefront of their memory for a second shot at conversion, sans expensive lead acquisition.
Why Leads Go Cold
Leads can cool off for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Knowing these reasons can assist you in making a more sympathetic and targeted message. Common reasons include:
- Timing: When they first inquired, they weren’t ready to buy.
- Budget: They encountered financial constraints.
- Distraction: They were too busy to remember your offering.
- Relatedness: So your Old Content showed before didn’t fit their need exactly.
Step 1: Segmentation Strategies
With that in mind and before you send even a single email, you need to segment your audience. A one-size-fits-all “We miss you” email won’t cut it with your entire database. Rather, segment your cold leads according to their behavior.
Typically, a common method of segmenting is to separate leads based on the duration of their inactivity:
- Sleeping: Inactive for 30-60 days.
- Deep Sleep: Inactive for 60-90 days.
- Coma Mode: Inactive for 90+ days.
By dividing, you can customize your level of aggression and incentives. A “Sleeping” lead might just need a little help waking up, but a “Coma Mode” lead may need an aggressive discount to re-engage.
Step 2: Crafting an Effective Campaign
A successful re-engagement campaign is not an email; it is a multi-touch workflow. The rule of thumb is to send a series of 3 – 4 emails over the course of two to three weeks.
Email Content and Personalization
Your email must seem personal and demonstrate something of value. Avoid generic corporate speak. If you’re in automotive, then take the data you do have to refer back to previous conversations or vehicles they’ve shown interest in.
Think of it, let us say, as if you are a chief technical examiner and looking at an engine: You do not just kick the tires. You’d look at the individual data points for diagnosing the problem. Do the same with your lead’s data. If they were considering an SUV, don’t give them a car offer. Personalization reflects relevancy and understanding, which develops trust.
The Power of Incentives and FOMO
Sometimes, a lead needs a tangible reason to come back. This is where incentives come into play.
- Exclusive Offers: “Come back today for $500 off your down payment.”
- FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out): “This offer expires in 48 hours.”
- New Features: Highlight what has changed since they last looked.
Step 3: Automation and Optimization
The vehicle is marketing automation that drives this strategy. Through workflows, you will never let any lead fall through the cracks. Automation lets you schedule emails based on preset actions like email open or site visit, so no manual work is involved.
Based on industry data, marketing automation of these repetitive tasks can help teams reclaim up to 49% of their time and drastically cut down on the overhead cost of marketing. This productivity enables your sales team to concentrate on actively closing deals rather than manually chasing cold leads.
Real-Time Analytics
After your campaign has launched, check the results. A/B test different subject lines, incentives, and times of day you send the invitation. Then you’ll optimize on the fly, because real-time analytics will tell you which segments are waking up and what messages are resonating.
Re-Engagement Statistics
Understanding the data behind re-engagement can help you benchmark your success.
| Metric | Benchmark Data |
|---|---|
| Acquisition vs. Retention | Acquiring a new customer costs 5x to 25x more than retaining an existing one. |
| Profit Impact | Increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. |
| List Decay | Email databases naturally degrade by about 22.5% every year. |
| Automation Efficiency | 49% of companies report that marketing automation saves time. |
| Productivity | Automation can lead to a 14.5% increase in sales productivity. |
Conclusion
Re-engagement campaigns are an essential to part of a healthy sales funnel. You can maximize the potential of the leads you’ve already paid for. With proper audience segmentation, targeted messaging and the beauty of automation, you can convert cold leads into dollars. Don’t let your database turn into a wasteland; get re-engaging today.
FAQs
How many emails should you send in a re-engagement series?
You’ll want to send 3-4 emails two to three weeks apart as a general rule in order to create a bit of momentum without bugging people.
When does a lead become “inactive”?
This will depend on your sales cycle, but generally speaking, I would consider a lead to be inactive if there is no engagement (opens, clicks or site visits) after 60-90 days.
What is the best re-engagement subject line?
A great way to do that is with subject lines: The kind of subject lines that work well include those that ask questions (“Would you make a good…?”) or imply a “breakup.” “Did I lose you?” is another example. Or does this still work for you?
Should I delete leads that do not respond?
Yes. For any lead that has gone through your re-engagement sequence and still hasn’t engaged, you should make every effort to suppress (at least temporarily) or remove them in order to protect your email deliverability rates.
Is there special software for this?
Yes, in order to be able to do the workflows automatically and segment the data well, you will need a CRM = a marketing automation platform (Elead, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign).
